Between the Lines with Devibharathi and N. Kalyan Raman

When the nameless protagonist of The Solitude of a Shadow unexpectedly encounters Karunakaran after nearly three decades, he is overwhelmed by a hitherto-dormant urge to wreak vengeance upon this man who had molested his sister and abused him all those years ago.

Devibharathi’s novel – his first to be translated into English describes with painful clarity the poverty and isolation of obsession, while life flourishes all around the protagonist. Written in his trademark sharp, clear-eyed style, it is also an astutely observed narrative of our society and its overlapping hierarchies of caste, wealth and power.

Superbly translated by N. Kalyan Raman, The Solitude of a Shadow shows us how treacherous and illusory the hunger for revenge can become – with unavoidable tragic consequences.

In conversation with Kartik Chauhan, the author and the translator talk about the complex moral universe of the novel and its literary experiments. Read more:

In conversation with Devibharathi

Q. The existentialist revenge trope has been frequently written about, from Shakespeare’s Hamlet to Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, to name just two famous works. What were some of your influences for the narrative and narrator in The Solitude of a Shadow?

Devibharathi: I have been constantly raising questions about the morality of living, the morality I learned from my previous works such as the short story, Bali (translated into English as The Victim*). It stems from a holistic perspective on life. I wanted to raise a similar question on morality through my novel, Nizhalin Thanimai (translated into English as The Solitude of a Shadow). You can see the questions that begin from Sharada (or Rajasekaran) moving later towards resolutions that are independent of them. Life establishes a morality for itself on its own terms. Life is always subject to such an autonomous design. What is the resolution reached by Sharada, the narrator, and Karunakaran? What are their successes and failures? In the end, none of them could face up to the questions thrown up by life.

Be it Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy, everyone must face life as it happens. This is the subtle wisdom on the morality of life. Who is holding this branch of subtle wisdom? This is perhaps a spiritual question, a question related to Indian spirituality. I really don’t have an answer.

Q. The novel brims with descriptions of grim death and grotesque crimes and often uses the language of abjection. From the “death pit of memory” to “exhumed Karunakaran’s stinking body,” to many instances of where revenge is seen as ashes and fire alternatively. Tell us about how you selected these metaphors and phrases to depict the desolation of the novel.

Devibharathi: Is life full of cruel deaths and horrible smells? You can find the answer to this question within the pages of this novel.

What happened to Sulo and Gautaman? Why should they have been punished? What did Sharada achieve in the end? Was Karunakaran punished through his death? What is left for the narrator, Rajasekaran? At the end of the novel, Karunakaran hugs him and says, ‘You are like my own child,’ doesn’t he? Doesn’t Karunakaran redeem himself through that embrace?

Q. It was so intriguing to see how the characters in the novel are named and how they behave. For instance, Karunakaran is essentially a name with the root karuna, which is compassion in Hindi, but he is the merciless villain in the novel. The two lovers of the narrator, Sulochna and Sugandhi have parallels too, and sensorial meanings of their names: the one with beautiful eyes and the one with a beautiful smell, respectively. Was this a deliberate decision to name the characters as such?

Devibharathi: Names are just names. I don’t think there is any need to look for reasons behind them. But I think a lot before choosing a name. They would have been familiar to me in some way at some point. I would want them to be closer to our language. In general, I think women should be beautiful. I feel sad when those characters meet with destruction. But I don’t think I have any grand design for the naming of characters.

Q. As a novel of postponed rage and vengeance, The Solitude of a Shadow spends a lot of time analysing the inner world of the protagonist who is torn between his drive for violence and his inability to execute it. Tell us about how the protagonist’s inner battle is represented in the novel, and how is it an indictment of the systemic violence and institutional atrophy that fails to deliver justice.

Devibharathi: In fact, it is a novel against the idea of revenge. If it weren’t so, why should I have reflected so much about Gandhi? There is a short story of mine called Irulukkum Piragu, Velichathukkum Appal (translated into English as Reversal*). I would say it’s a story against revenge, against violence. Exploring one’s inner world is essential for a any creative artist. Only through facing the violence in ourselves can we struggle against it. Buddha, Jesus, Gandhi et al. were against an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. And that’s how meaningful conversations on non-violence began. Now it’s time for you to talk about politics, perhaps?

Q. About the revenge plot, it is often argued that the response to crime to seek “justice” is indeed a perpetuation of the cycle of violence. Were you conscious of justifying crime even as an act of vengeance in the novel?

Devibharathi: No, I am not justifying violence through this novel. Look at the tears that Karunakaran sheds in his final days. This novel is the moment when Sharada takes leave of the narrator after saying, ‘No, this is not him; it’s someone else,’ which is also the moment she comes out of the miasma of revenge.

In conversation with N. Kalyan Raman

Q. There is a narrative urgency to the plot, which is represented in its confessional tone. The narrator is often talking as if in a police procedural. How did you manage to capture this urgency in your translation?

N. Kalyan Raman: In my reading, the urgency in the narrator’s tone comes from his inability, despite his self-awareness, to control the obsessive force of his desire—for revenge, among other things—and withstand the torment of the attendant loneliness. Equally urgent is his need to negotiate a place for himself in a world of complex hierarchies.

As a translator, I attempt an immersive reading of the text and stay close to it while translating. As in creative writing, the process of translation itself is instinctive rather than self-conscious. What comes through is the depth of one’s reading and the skills at one’s command. Naturally, one hopes for the best.

Q. The narrator often uses metaphors to describe his feelings or the people around him. Breasts are compared to upturned chrysanthemums; the narrator tells us he has a “timepiece in his mind.” How did you lead these metaphors across the bridges of two languages?

N. Kalyan Raman: These two metaphors (and many others like them in the book) are as uncommon in Tamil as they are in English. In the original, the author’s language indicates that these metaphors are engendered in the depths of the narrator’s personality and in his response to the respective contexts; they are part of his way of seeing, if you will. I tried to get this across in my translation as well. Given the remarkable internal consistency of the narrative, I did not find it difficult at all.

Q. Even with its taut pace, the novel is a deep dive into the characters’ inner worlds, and is quite descriptive, while maintaining a certain economy of words. How has the process of translation captured this economy? What were some challenges that you faced while translating?

N. Kalyan Raman: Again, I owe any degree of success of the translation to Devibharathi’s remarkable language, craft and skill as a storyteller. The economy of words, twists and turns, flow and hypnotic rhythm are all present in the original. I try to write each sentence precisely, in terms of meaning, tone and inflection, as the author has written it. The challenge is always at the level of the sentence and the words it is made up of.

Q. The novel is also repeatedly conscious of the limits of its fiction, and in various instances breaks the fourth wall to comment on its own fictiveness. Tell us about how the original novel derives and departs from the traditional tropes used in Tamil literature.

N. Kalyan Raman: I would say that the author is equally conscious of the possibilities of fiction and, indeed, of life itself. A story is not merely about what happens to the characters, but also about the choices they make and about instances where the choices are made for them, when someone else takes charge of their story. What comes through, however, is ‘the fury of the moment’, which is present throughout the narrative. In that sense, it is a Dostoevskian story, brought up to our postmodern age.

Devibharathi tells a new story every time, and always in a new way. As far as I can see, his creative writing practice is driven by two imperatives: inhabiting the present historical moment and a re-imagination of morality that will lead to a renewal of the human spirit in our time. 

*Both The Victim and Reveral are in included in Farewell, Mahatma, a collection of Devibharathi’s short stories in an English translation by N Kalyan Raman. Farewell, Mahatma is available as a HarperPerennial Special Edition published in 2024.